By WPRO News
Cranston Mayor Allan Fung said he’s still a Republican, but his wife Barbara Ann Fenton has quit a party committee after the election of Sue Cienki Sunday as state GOP chair.
I come from an enormous fire family, including an uncle on the #NYFD & a cousin memorialized on the @IAFFMemorial in Colorado Springs. I will always stand in solidarity with these everyday heroes, & not @CienkiSue, & as such have resigned from the @RhodeIslandGOP. pic.twitter.com/bvcCjZURBN
— BA Fenton-Fung, MSPT, MSMM (@BarbaraAnnRI) April 1, 2019
When she was East Greenwich council president, Cienki was involved in hardball negotiations with firefighters – a give-and-take she tells WPRO’s Dan Yorke was pro-taxpayer, not anti-fire fighter. The Providence Journal cites a lawsuit that claimed Cienki called a firefighter a “sociopath” and said, “I will cut off his balls and feed them to his [expletive] dog.”
In announcing her departure from the party, Fenton mentioned all the firefighters in her family… but Cienki’s not sure that’s why she’s left.
“I don’t think so. I think that she supported Rebecca Schiff, and you have an absolute right to support whoever you want in the party. That’s what primaries are for. You back the party. But if you win or you lose, then you just move on,” she said.
Cienki says she and Schiff – and the other two candidates who ran for party chief – are now united. She calls Fenton’s leaving disappointing.
Listen to “RI GOP Party Chairwoman Sue Cienki 04/01/19” on Spreaker.
